Puducherry government revives plan to expand runway

Expansion work will be taken up by acquiring 170 acres in the first phase

PUDUCHERRY, 28 July 2021: Tourism Minister K. Lakshminarayanan at a meeting with officials after inspecting the Puducherry Airport in Lawspet on Wednesday. Photo: KUMAR SS / The Hindu

The government has revived its plan to expand the runway of Puducherry airport with a few modifications in the land plan.

As per the new plan for expansion, the runway would be extended from its present length of 1500 metre to 3300 metre by acquiring 170 acres of land in the first phase.

The earlier plan was to expand the runway by acquiring around 400 acres of land, a large stretch falling in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu.

In the last few days, Minister for Public Works K. Lakshminarayanan, who also holds the Civil Aviation portfolio, held discussions with senior officials and Director of Puducherry Airport Vijaya Upadhyay.

Mr. Lakshminarayanan also visited the airport on Wednesday to discuss the new plan.

The Minister told

The Hindu that the expansion would be done in a phased manner with limited land available.

“We cannot acquire a vast stretch given our resource constraints and other difficulties involved. So, we have limited the area for expansion and the new land plan is ready,” he added.

Mr. Lakshminarayanan said he had already set in motion the process to hand over the land available with the Public Works Department to Airports Authority of India and also to acquire the land available here.

“Our preliminary assessment is that around 70 acres will be available on our side and the remaining 100 acres we will have to get from Tamil Nadu,” he said.

The government would be soon approaching the Villupuram District administration for the purpose, he also added.

Expansion to 3300 metre

Mr. Upadhyay said the expansion of runway from its present capacity to 3300 metre would enable wide-bodied aircrafts to operate from here.

Recently, Lt. Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan had, on a call with the Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, taken up the issue of resuming flights to Puducherry and runway expansion to accommodate ART/Bombardier Q 400 type aircraft with 90-seater capacity, without any load penalty.